NOTE: DO NOT DOWNLOAD THE COMPRESSED MP4 THAT ARCHIVE.ORG AUTO-GENERATES. THE SUBTITLES ARE MUXED INTO THE MATROSKA/MKV FILE.

This is an RF-rip of Yukio Ninagawa’s 1984 performance of Medea AKA 王女メディア. Released by TOHO video only on VHS, tape number TD5234S. This performance itself was referenced in an episode of Chris Marker’s The Owl’s Legacy. As far as I know, no full rip of this tape exists online. This rip took about 6 months and at least 3 destroyed VCRs to do correctly. I have also included scans of any relevant materials.

Methodology:

Audio is HiFi captured baseband via a RME Babyface Pro FS. Capture was done using a Domesday Duplicator on a RF-tapped Sony SLV-N70. Sync was established using an IO-Data GV-USB2. There is some minor crosshatching noise visible in the reds later in the tape, which I may address at a later capture if I can properly build an amplifier for the RF capture process. For the most part I have attempted to not overly filter the image, as I would like it to be as close to the source as possible, although two different RF rips were used to account for a sudden jump in brightness in the opening scene as well as dropped frames. Encoding was done entirely in Vapoursynth, and I have erred on the side of a more transparent encode for this. Deinterlacing was done in QTGMC.

I would like to thank my friend Tim Faust for financing the translation. The translator does not wish to receive credit. I would also like to thank KO5MO5 for requesting the tape and my friend bruce for noticing the tape on Mercari and sending the listing my way.

If anyone needs an archival rip of an untransferred tape or Laserdisc, I would be happy to be that beast of burden for the community.

VS Script (#’d Out Nodes Omitted):

import vapoursynth as vs

from vsdenoise import temporal_degrain

import havsfunc as haf

import vstools

core = vs.core

##### Import The Video

src = core.lsmas.LWLibavSource(PATH/Medeav2-fixed.mkv')

src_fix = core.lsmas.LWLibavSource(PATH/Medea_fixed_full.mkv')

src.set_output (0)

src_fix.set_output (1)

#### Fix it

merged = src[:11813] + src_fix[11804:20667] + src[20670:]

merged.set_output (3)

##### Crop It

cropped = core.std.Crop(merged,14,18,8,12) # left, right, top, bottom

cropped.set_output(4)

##### Deinterlace with QTGMC

deduped = haf.QTGMC(cropped,TFF=True,Sharpness=0.3,TR2=2,Preset="Placebo",MatchPreset='Placebo', MatchPreset2='Placebo', NoisePreset='Slower', Search=3,SourceMatch=3, InputType=0, Lossless=2)

deduped.set_output(5)

##### Change Color Space for Retail Output

output_depth = deduped.fmtc.bitdepth(bits=8)

legalized = output_depth.std.Limiter(

min=(16, 16, 16),

max=(235, 240, 240),

)

legalized.set_output(8)

#To get SAR pipe

#vspipe Medea_2.vpy -c y4m -o 8 - | ffmpeg -c:v libx264 -crf 16 -preset veryslow -aspect 4:3 sartest.mkv -i -

#and get the SAR, then apply that to the x264 encoding

#Current script --sar SAR=6/7

x264 parameters:

# vspipe Medea_2.vpy -c y4m -s 18 -o 8 - | c:\tools\x264\x264-r3107-a8b68eb.exe - --demuxer y4m --crf 16 --sar 6/7 --preset placebo --profile high --threads auto --level 4.1 --rc-lookahead 250 --me umh --no-dct-decimate --no-fast-pskip --deblock -3:-3 --qcomp 0.6 --ipratio 1.30 --aq-mode 3 --aq-strength 0.8 --merange 32 --psy-rd 1:0 --bframes 16 --output Medea.mkv

Summary: 

Yukio Ninagawa's striking rendering of the classic play by Euripides done entirely in Japanese performed in both Japan and Greece at the famous Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens. 

This is an RF-rip of Yukio Ninagawa’s 1984 performance of Medea AKA 王女メディア. Released by TOHO video only on VHS, tape number TD5234S. This performance itself was referenced in an episode of Chris Marker’s The Owl’s Legacy. As far as I know, no full rip of this tape exists online. This rip took about 6 months and at least 3 destroyed VCRs to do correctly. I have also included scans of any relevant materials. 

Methodology: 

Audio is HiFi captured baseband via a RME Babyface Pro FS. Capture was done using a Domesday Duplicator on a RF-tapped Sony SLV-N70. Sync was established using an IO-Data GV-USB2. There is some minor crosshatching noise visible in the reds later in the tape, which I may address at a later capture if I can properly build an amplifier for the RF capture process. For the most part I have attempted to not overly filter the image, as I would like it to be as close to the source as possible, although two different RF rips were used to account for a sudden jump in brightness in the opening scene as well as dropped frames. Encoding was done entirely in Vapoursynth, and I have erred on the side of a more transparent encode for this. Deinterlacing was done in QTGMC.

I would like to thank my friend Tim for financing the translation. The translator does not wish to receive credit. I would also like to thank someone for requesting the tape and my friend for noticing the tape on Mercari and sending the listing my way. 

If anyone needs an archival rip of an untransferred tape or Laserdisc, I would be happy to be that beast of burden.

Script (#’d Out Nodes Omitted): 

import vapoursynth as vs

from vsdenoise import temporal_degrain

import havsfunc as haf

import vstools

core = vs.core

##### Import The Video

src = core.lsmas.LWLibavSource(PATH/Medeav2-fixed.mkv')

src_fix = core.lsmas.LWLibavSource(PATH/Medea_fixed_full.mkv')

src.set_output (0)

src_fix.set_output (1)

#### Fix it

merged = src[:11813] + src_fix[11804:20667] + src[20670:]

merged.set_output (3)

##### Crop It

cropped = core.std.Crop(merged,14,18,8,12) # left, right, top, bottom

cropped.set_output(4)

##### Deinterlace with QTGMC

deduped = haf.QTGMC(cropped,TFF=True,Sharpness=0.3,TR2=2,Preset="Placebo",MatchPreset='Placebo', MatchPreset2='Placebo', NoisePreset='Slower', Search=3,SourceMatch=3, InputType=0, Lossless=2)

deduped.set_output(5)

##### Change Color Space for Retail Output

output_depth = deduped.fmtc.bitdepth(bits=8)

legalized = output_depth.std.Limiter(

min=(16, 16, 16),

max=(235, 240, 240),

)

legalized.set_output(8)

#To get SAR pipe

#vspipe Medea_2.vpy -c y4m -o 8 - | ffmpeg -c:v libx264 -crf 16 -preset veryslow -aspect 4:3 sartest.mkv -i -

#and get the SAR, then apply that to the x264 encoding

#Current script --sar SAR=6/7

Vspipe encoding settings:

# vspipe Medea_2.vpy -c y4m -s 18 -o 8 - | c:\tools\x264\x264-r3107-a8b68eb.exe - --demuxer y4m --crf 16 --sar 6/7 --preset placebo --profile high --threads auto --level 4.1 --rc-lookahead 250 --me umh --no-dct-decimate --no-fast-pskip --deblock -3:-3 --qcomp 0.6 --ipratio 1.30 --aq-mode 3 --aq-strength 0.8 --merange 32 --psy-rd 1:0 --bframes 16 --output Medea.mkv

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